How a shabby car-spares shop was transformed into a photographer’s home

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‘The dining room is the hub of the house,’ says Verity. The vintage sofa is covered with a blanket from Couverture
& the Garbstore, while the carpet is by Paul Smith for The Rug
Company.Credit:
Verity Welstead

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The west London house that photographer Verity Welstead shares with her husband Michael and their three teenage girls (Finty, 17, Eliza, 15, and Angelica, 13) is bright and busy, with music and laughter filtering up from the basement as I enter.

Downstairs there’s a menagerie of animals – a cat, a dog and a rabbit – waiting to greet me alongside the family. It’s a very vibrant and stylish home, and one that has undergone a gradual but very dramatic transformation.

When the couple moved in 17 years ago from the tiny one-bedroom basement flat that Michael, then a musician, owned on the same street, the five-bedroom house was a wreck. ‘I needed a studio space for my photography work and Michael needed more space for his equipment,’ says Verity, who had moved down to London from Norfolk to set up home with Michael a couple of years previously. ‘I was also keen to get away from his leopard-print furniture and regular band practice in the living room!’ she confides.

Verity and her daughters (and pets)Credit:
Verity Welstead

The Victorian building had previously hosted a car-spares shop, selling tyres, exhaust pipes and the like. ‘When we looked round, the three floors above the shop were totally derelict and inhabited mostly by old tyres and lewd calendars. It hadn’t been lived in for 30 years, since the previous owner – a man named Mr Strange – had moved out,’ says Verity. ‘The real beauty of the house was the space – and the price! – but I felt slightly sick at the enormity of the project,’ she admits.

We tend to buy what we love and somehow it sits together because it’s all a similar aestheticVerity Welstead

But Michael, who had worked in the building trade and now runs his own kitchen- and bathroom-design business, was able to see through the grime to the potential. The house had good bones with decent-sized rooms and many of the original Victorian features.

‘At the time we were really living on a shoestring,’ says Verity, ‘so I set up my photographic studio space in the former shop while Michael did much of the painting, decorating and plastering of the upstairs floors to make them habitable.’

‘I love cooking, so the kitchen had to be a very functional space,’ says Verity. The kitchen units are from MC Stone, while the shelf is a Portobello find that Michael painted matt blackCredit:
Verity Welstead

Seventeen years on and much has changed. The ground-floor studio, which also went through a period as a shop for Michael’s natural-stone business, is now the family kitchen and dining room. The basement, which was the designated area for Michael’s music equipment and band practice, has now been integrated into the living area and garden. The top floor has become a serene master bedroom.

‘As the girls grew up, we wanted it to be more of a family home and less of a work/live space,’ says Verity. ‘There is no real method in our style. We tend to buy what we love and somehow it sits together because it’s all a similar aesthetic. Much of our furniture comes from the nearby Portobello and Golborne Road markets, as well as from travels abroad.’

The couple enlisted the expertise of award-winning architect Jonathan Tuckey to transform the ground floor and the basement, which were originally very dark and felt separate from the house.

In the downstairs den, the white sofa
is from Natuzzi, with cushions by Home AddressCredit:
Verity Welstead

‘There was a small door to the garden but it was awkward to get to and the basement was filled with music equipment, meaning we hardly ever used the outside space.’ Jonathan was tasked with conjuring light into the basement and creating a feeling of continuity between the two floors. For planning purposes they also needed to keep the feel of the original shop front.

The solution was two light-filled voids with a giant wraparound window on the garden side of the house to let in light and give a sense of the garden and green spaces beyond. Jonathan kept the large shop window on to the road to feed as much light as possible down to the basement, and solved the issue of privacy by erecting a wall of shelving. Designed to be a flexible space – everything from a spare bedroom to a studio, film room and games room – it is currently used a den by the girls.

The airy master bedroom features a bath from MC Stone and many vintage market findsCredit:
Verity Welstead

‘No one ever comes up here except us,’ says Verity, as the tour of the house ends in the airy master bedroom that was formerly the attic. ‘It’s a sanctuary away from the hubbub of the family and we like the fact that the bathroom and bedroom merge into one space so that we can talk to each other easily from bed to bath. When I think back to what the house was like when we bought it, I can’t believe how much it’s changed.’